Want to do something for your fav nonprofits, but the wallet’s a bit thin? Try GoodSearch.

It’s a Yahoo! powered search engine that donates to the charity of your choice for every search you make.

If shopping online is more your thing, GoodSearch also operates GoodShop, an online store that gives back up to 30% of every purchase to the charity of your choice.

Using GoodSearch

Go to GoodSearch and enter the charity you wish to support in the second search box under WHO DO YOU GOODSEARCH FOR? Click the verify button.

If the charity is listed on GoodSearch, you’ll see this under the search box: “Search now and money will go to your designated cause.” That means the charity is verified.

Once it’s verified, go to the search box above the charity search box and enter your search term(s), as you would in any browser. Use this each time you search and money will be donated to the charity you choose for that search. If you have more than one charity that you support, you may alternate between the various charities.

Charity not verified?

If the charity you entered can’t be verified (you’ll see text below the search box indicating that you need to re-try your search), then go to the Add A New Charity page. The link to that page is at the bottom of the GoodSearch home page.

Registration of a charity is free and easy, but you’ll need to be familiar with the charity to fill out the form. Also, make sure you have the nonprofit’s EIN, or Employer ID Number, for the form.

Once your charity’s accepted, you can start searching and shopping for good!
Using GoodShop

Once you’re at GoodShop, fill in the WHO DO YOU SUPPORT box, if it’s not automatically filled in with the charity of your choice, then click the verify button.

There are several ways to find stores:
• Near the top of the page, search for a specific store, or
• search the alphabetized dropdown list, or
• scroll down the page to see the most popular stores, or
• search by category from the left side of the page.

At the bottom of the GoodShop page, there are popular coupons and deals, or there may be deals and coupons to be found on a store’s page.

Top retailers like Best Buy, Amazon, Buy.com, and eBay are participants in this cool deal that benefits buyers, sellers and, most of all, nonprofits!

Just click on the store where you want to shop, use any coupons that are listed on the store’s GoodShop page, and click the “GoodShop This Store” icon to begin shopping for good!

Browse the Internet with GoodSearch and shop with GoodShop. It’s the feel-good way to help out PKIDs and other nonprofits without squeezing your budget.

It’s been many days since our last blog entry, but there’s good reason – we’ve been hard at work putting together a project for PKIDs’ Vaccine Initiative. We invite you to visit www.getvaxed.org, a website for teens and twentysomethings reminding them that they, too, need immunizations.

GETVAXED features funny videos, basic info on what vaccines are needed and the diseases they prevent and a contest for videographers everywhere. Send in a funny video and win a prize. Simple! (Well, there are a few rules, but why mess up a blog with fine print?)

If you have a moment, please visit the GETVAXED website and let us know what you think. We want to hear any and all suggestions or comments that will help us make the site even better.

The healthcare of teens and young adults is too often underfunded, undervalued and underutilized. Immunizations are easy, and easily overlooked. Encourage young people you know to check in with a healthcare provider and find out what vaccines they need.

I’m really excited about our new Virtual Connections offerings. Our goal is to provide fun and informative ways for people to get the information they want in a way that fits into their schedules, and to foster a greater sense of community among our families. Here’s the low-down on the Virtual Community features:

Blog – You’re reading it now! For anyone who received the PKIDs’ News mailing, the blog will fill that need – with the informative articles – and more, providing information about the organization’s activities and current events related to the topics we cover.

Live chats – We just launched two chat rooms: open and moderated. The open chat room will be for people to log into and chat with each other. This room will be open 24/7 for you to use at your convenience. The moderated chat room will be reserved for scheduled chats with guests and other experts. Our first moderated chat will be taking place November 14th with Phil Rosenthal, MD, as our guest. For more information on chats, please visit the live chats main page.

I highly recommend subscribing. That way, you automatically receive posts when they’re posted.

Podcasts – If you’d rather hear your news than read it, podcasts are for you. We haven’t got our podcasts up and running yet, but they’ll be as easy to hear and receive as the blog and newsfeeds. The podcasts will be MP3 files of interviews and such on various topics.

Listserv – As some of you know, we’ve offered a listserv for our parents for quite some time. We’ll continue to offer this, and in the future are considering forums as well. Forums are a great way to encourage community and support, just as our friendly listserv is doing.

I hope this paints a picture of our newest developments and the ones we’ve got in the works. As always, contact the office with any questions and suggestions!

Autumn always brings busy times to the office. We’re continuing to update the Pediatric Hepatitis Report. We’d hoped to have it all done by last spring, but it didn’t happen, although quite a bit has been updated. We think it will all get done before the holidays.

As part of the Teen Vaccine Initiative, we’re working with a production company to make five videos for 18-24 year olds. They’re funny and serve as reminders that vaccines are out there for this age group. When the time is close for the unveiling of the masterpieces, we’ll release the URL and do a big media campaign.

PKIDs has been on the board of directors of the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable since that organization’s inception. I took over for another PKIDs parent who needed to resign for medical reasons and am now on the executive committee as vice-chair. Molli Conti from the Hepatitis B Foundation is the chairperson and she, along with Dick Conlon, are keeping us moving. (http://www.nvhr.org/) At some point, and probably soon, we’ll need to get off the board and make room for others. For now we’re hanging in to represent the kids. If you represent a pediatric organization, you might consider joining NVHR and running for the board during the next elections.

I’m on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, which is part of NVPO (National Vaccine Program Office), which is part of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. I’m the consumer rep on the committee. They try to fit in one regular person to give the consumer’s viewpoint to goings-on?so for the next four years, that’s me. If you have any vaccine-related opinions you’d like me to share or questions you’d like answered, let me know and I’ll pass them along.

We are fine-tuning an Infectious Disease Workshop that we’re going to market to the business community.

We’re doing all sorts of virtual community work on our website. Franji can better explain everything we’re doing and I’m sure she’ll be writing a blog entry to cover all that.

Other than the usual work of helping parents who call in and keeping up-to-date on the various issues that matter to the families and writing grant proposals and finding resources for folks and so on, I think I’ve hit on the highlights. Feel free to call the office if you want to chat (877-557-5437) or email pkids@pkids.org.

Disclaimer

The information on PKIDs' Blog is for educational purposes only and should not be considered to be medical advice. It is not meant to replace the advice of the physician who cares for you or your child. All medical advice and information should be considered to be incomplete without a physical exam, which is not possible without a visit to your doctor.